Guilt, I have it. Webster’s dictionary defines “guilt” as “a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, etc., whether real or imagined.” That’s exactly how I feel sometimes. I have unsurpassable guilt as a mother, and a wife. My inability to take care of my home, my children, and my husband feels like a Christian crime. I am letting down my team. I am burden to them, not a willing servant. Every marriage book, or conference, or women’s Bible study I attended affirmed my suspicion that I was committing a horrible offense against my family by my infirmity. Serve, they said. Serve even at a detriment to yourself, like Christ served us. Have the house clean before your husband comes home so he feels welcomed and relaxed. Jump up to greet him at the door.
Fantastic advice however, my husband comes home to a pile of dirty dishes, boys who need to get to sports and finish homework, a wife who can barely get off the sofa, much less jump into his arms for a hug. Some days my boys have to forage their own food for supper because I didn’t have enough strength to make something for everyone. (Good thing they love cereal for supper.) I felt like a complete failure as a wife, a mother, and a Christian woman in general. All this practical advice doled out by wise and respected Christian women for keeping a happy home and marriage, I’ve completely failed to carry out because of my pain.
Pain in any form doesn’t just affect one person. It encompasses my entire social circle, with the most impact being my family. This battle has me feeling an overwhelming burden of guilt about my inability to serve my family. After two surgeries, the pain has become widespread, increasingly difficult to control, and invades every part of our lives. I’m beginning to see that this chronic pain might never be leaving me – might never be leaving us. It was like the proverbial uninvited houseguest; it arrived unannounced, not so intrusive at first, but gradually wreaking havoc on my marriage and mothering, undoing the order in my home, and settling down into my life, never intending to leave. Chronic pain or illness can at first glance seem merely personal, but in a very real way it is something that affects an entire family just as much as the individual sufferer.
As I learn to limit my physical activities more and more to regulate the pain, my husband has to pick up the slack. I felt useless and aggravated every time he had to do the dishes, something I “should have” been able to do. I would try to do them despite the pain, to feel like I was fulfilling my role in our home (I do stay home all day after all), but would inevitably end up disgruntled on the sofa with my pills and an ice or hot pack. My husband still sometimes has to remind me from the kitchen to make me lie down and not hurt myself. But I want to work, I want to serve my family, and I want to feel productive. These are all good things, right? Why has God taken away something that he commands me to do: serve?
Now I am connecting pain to my guilt. I always thought, “I can deal with this pain and let God use it in my life, but I don’t want it to ‘hurt’ my family. That’s not fair.” I thought that was righteous and loving. But if I am reaping the eternal benefit of having my faith tested and strengthened through this fire, how can I deny that same experience of God’s grace to my family and friends? I came to a rather startling conclusion: my guilt, for all that it appears to be concerned for others, is really self-centered. It’s selfish. It’s my ego screaming out to be validated while writhing in my own feeling of uselessness.
Guilt was something in which I had allowed myself to indulge. For example, I have felt “righteously guilty” about not being able to take my children on walks around our neighborhood. My line of thought would go something like this: “I should feel guilty that I can’t take him out. Children are supposed to go for walks. They would be happier and healthier if we got more fresh air and stretched our legs. I feel so useless. I’m such a bad mother. I’m so insufficient for this task. I wish I could just get better. Is being able to walk really too much to ask? Why does God not want me to take my children for walks? Doesn’t He want them to revel in His creation? Doesn’t He want me to take good care of them?”
Not sure if you noticed, because I didn’t for a long time, but that inner dialogue was really all about me. It is just me whining, letting my feelings rule over me, and indulging in a little pity party. It’s me not trusting God. And it’s me wrongly defining what it is to be a good mother and to live a “useful” life.
So there’s the truth about my guilt; what I thought I could wallow in as “selfless love” for others and sorrow over my “ruining” their lives, was actually sinful and self-centered. I shouldn’t be surprised; “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Isaiah 17:9).
This life is not all about me and how I feel. It’s not all about my marriage or my children either. It’s certainly not about my ability to go for walks or do the dishes. It’s all about God. It’s about the work He is doing for His glory – and as believers that includes working for my good and the good of my family. He has seen fit to give me this chronic pain for a purpose – His purpose - which I don’t fully understand. He has given me a husband and two wonderful children to go on this difficult journey with me. And He knows that I struggle with my role as a mother and wife. But I know that He is good and He is training me to take my eyes off of myself and my guilt and onto Him for sustenance, even when I don’t understand. He has a plan: “You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it” (Psalm 139:5-6).
God never defined good mothering as taking your children to the park every day. The purpose of mothering is to raise children to know and fear the Lord. It is to “teach [God’s works] to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 11:19). The purpose of marriage is to reflect the loving union between Christ and His Bride, the Church (Ephesians 5:22-33). Those goals can be accomplished only through God’s grace and strength, and even through much suffering. In fact, as I think about it, my pain gives my husband more opportunities to serve me as Christ served the church. He is challenged to lay down his life and his plans and his dreams anew every day. God is forcing him to change those personal plans to better reflect His plan. Rather than feel guilty about this, I should praise God that He is constantly using my pain to shape my husband more and more into the image of Christ.
My children won’t suffer from a lack of walks as much as they would suffer from a mother who has no faith in God’s providence and goodness. My pain can point them to the Gospel in a way a “normal” life would not. Mommy can’t play right now, and that makes me sad, but I want them to see joy in my life. I can still be in pain but be filled with joy and hope. There is no room for guilt in that great hope. I’m at peace. God grants me not only strength in Christ, but joy! My hope is not in my abilities, or my children, or the cleanliness of my home; my hope is in my God who has saved me, redeemed me, adopted me, and is using my pain for His glory and my good.
The pain doesn’t go away. Nothing out there in the world, or in there in my body, has changed. But I have remembered that God is sovereign and God is good. Instead of suffocating under the weight of anxiety, guilt, and despair, when I trust God my soul can sing out, albeit through tears, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25-26).
You have amazing insight here, Pinky. Our hearts are indeed deceitful. Thanks for using God's word to illuminate your sin. It lit up mine as well. Love you, sis.
ReplyDeleteBillybob from Wichita